What would it mean for America's schools to focus on excellence? Jack Despain Zhou is the founder of the Center for Educational Progress, a new think tank focused on promoting academic excellence. He joins the show to talk about whether we've gone too far in the pursuit of equity goals in education, how we can support and challenge students at every ability level, whether or not tracking is a good idea, and ultimately what a vision of a stronger education system could look like.

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The big Republican bill to explode the deficit and cut healthcare has passed Congress and been signed by President Trump. But it's not just bad in the obvious ways - it's also terrible on energy policy. PPI's Director of Energy and Climate Policy Elan Sykes joins the podcast to discuss how Trump's bill will lead to more expensive and more polluting energy.

Check out our previous discussion of the big GOP bill - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-down-the-big-beautiful-bill-ft-jason-furman/id1390384827?i=1000713418967

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What's happening with Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill? Jason Furman and Ben Ritz join the podcast to discuss the long run impact the bill would have, why Republicans are so comfortable blowing up the deficit, and whether the Biden administration's mistakes are linked to the moment we're in now.

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Got questions? Send us a note at mailbag@cnliberalism.org.